Exciting documentary about Australian photographer Robert McFarlane

The Still Point is a documentary film about the work of prolific Australian documentary photographer and photojournalist Robert McFarlane.

Mira is seeking funding to complete the documentary for distribution. Below you will find links to the funding campaign on Pozible, to which you can make a donation and see this important film made. The target is $11,000 to see it released.

Robert is a friend of SA photography, he currently resides south of Adelaide, and we always enjoy his contribution as an advisor and raconteur. The following information has been provided by Mira, explaining this exciting project.

McFarlane has photographed for over five decades, working independently and largely free of mainstream media or the restrictions of commercial photography.

He makes images that take his audience into cinematic and intriguing visual spaces and has photographed on the street, in the theatre, within Indigenous Australia, and in public and private spaces, amassing a body of work that is, in scope and quality, a sincere reflection of the world.

His photographs document working life and a constantly changing Australian society. They are also a record of film and theatre during its cultural rebirth in the 1970's and 80's in Australia, and of politics and political figures during times of upheaval.

The film will look at McFarlane's contribution to photojournalism and documentation, and on the other hand, will examine the intimacy of his observations, photography as a way of being in life, the value of the personal and the sensitivity it takes to work in the space shared by photographer and subject.

The Still Point also asks why McFarlane’s work, and photography in general, still speaks to us.

Well-known images of prominent Australian figures including Charlie Perkins, Cate Blanchett, Bob Hawke, Geoffrey Rush, Gough Whitlam, and Aboriginal activist Burnum Burnum, as well as many unseen and personal images, provide a window into distilled moments, documented without sentiment or nostalgia, in which the real is more potent and intriguing than the fabricated moment.

Interviews with actors, directors, peers, and those close to the photographer reveal McFarlane's ideas about photography, his approach to work, and the resulting images of a lifetime spent behind the lens.

"I THINK I’VE BEEN TAKING TWO PULSES…THE PULSE OF THE SOCIETY AROUND ME, AND MY OWN PULSE”

The Still Point is an attempt to show us what we may not have at first noticed; the beliefs of the person looking out at us, the beauty of an encounter, a changing world, the strength of an individual, what we thought the world we inhabit might be or never expected it to be.

"WHEN YOU PHOTOGRAPH PEOPLE, PUT THE EGO ASIDE AND JUST THINK WHO THE HELL IS THAT PERSON AND HOW WILL WE REMEMBER THEM? …BECAUSE YOU KNOW A SNAPSHOT OF GREATNESS IS BETTER THAN THE MOST GRAND POMPOUS PORTRAIT”